The Auditor General’s office wants to make its reports more user-friendly. Simply put, it is so that the lay man and woman can easily understand and use the documents. So, this week they partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank for a three-day training course. Twenty-three staff members of the Auditor General’s Office learnt new and […]
The Ministry of Labour has been partnering with the U.S. Department of Labour to strengthen systems to address child labour. As a part of the works being done, a curriculum for labour inspectors was developed and officially shared at a workshop held this week in Belize City. The training introduced the participants to the methodology and […]
The C.C.C.C.C., headquartered in Belmopan deals with the environmental concerns of the entire Caribbean. On Wednesday, in San Ignacio, ground was broken for the construction of a resource and resiliency centre that will be working to reduce the carbon footprint of San Ignacio and five surrounding villages in the west. The construction is being funded […]
Miss Universe Belize, Jenelli Fraser, is currently in Taiwan en route to Bangkok, Thailand for the international pageant to be held on December sixteenth. Fraser has gone through extensive training and preparation in the U.S. in her quest for the coveted crown. Over the last few days, she has been fine-tuning her wardrobe and learning […]
There were fireworks in Senate today on two matters that required ratification to pass. First, last week in the House, the Government passed a motion to borrow fourteen million dollars more from the International Development Bank for the George Price Rehabilitation project. That loan is to top off another fifty-four million dollars borrowed back in […]
Even so, the loan was approved by a majority of senators this afternoon. Most of the road is still under repair and the Roaring Creek Bridge is incomplete. The new loan brings the total cost of the road rehabilitation project to over eighty million Belize dollars. Private sector Senator Mark Lizarraga says that there is […]
Last Friday, the House also passed an amendment to the GST Act which affects tour operators. It came on the heels of a ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice in October ordering G.O.B. to repay more than half a million dollars to Cruise Solutions Limited and Discovery Expeditions Limited. The C.C.J. ruling set aside […]
Senator Lizarraga points out that the business community is nervous about this move by government because it goes beyond tour operators since it blurs the line between the separation of powers of the judiciary and the executive. He also notes investor confidence is shaken when the government resorts to parliament to bypass a court ruling. […]
Minister Omar Figueroa was among a group of cabinet members who made a request to Prime Minister Dean Barrow to postpone his planned retirement and remain as party leader. Now that the PM has agreed to stay on until closer to the next general elections, the move has put a wrench in the leadership ambitions […]
Figures were released today in respect of the performance of the economy; they show that the gross domestic product grew by more than three percent and that the cost of living also inched up slightly when compared to the same period last year. Agriculture and the fishing industries contributed to the economic growth while prices […]
Over the past several months, the S.I.B. has also been busy working with the Department of the Environment to produce what will be known as environmental statistics, which will be included in future publications. The study is one of several activities that the autonomous body has been engaged with in 2018, aside from embarking upon […]
Today in The Hague, Netherlands, the Belizean media got the opportunity to have an extensive conversation with Dylan Vernon, Ambassador of Belize to Belgium and Mission of Belize to the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States Ambassador Vernon is also the Belize’s diplomatic contact for the I.C.J. In almost an […]
A report and receipt surfaced on social media recently claiming that Minister Omar Figueroa had received a donation from the Hol Chan Marine Reserve to be used in his constituency. Figueroa is responsible for matters relating to the reserves and it seemed that he was piggy-backing his office for political contributions from a fund that […]
As it stands, the Department of Transport and the nine cities and towns across the country all work independently of each other. They also operate on separate electronic databases and manual systems which end up in poorly organized and inaccessible record management and data sharing. The Belize Motor Vehicle Registration and License System is a […]
As many as two hundred primary school students from across Belize City, many of them between the ages of five and ten years old, attended the first Christmas party to kick off the 2018 Yuletide. They all gathered at the Fort Street Tourism Village for lunch and bellyfuls of laughter from Ozzie the Clown. The […]
There is a major shift in the power play in the United Democratic Party in regards to the retirement of Prime Minister Dean Barrow. The PM has decided to stay in power and ride out his term in office which expires in 2020. This was announced today in a rare release following a meeting of […]
Twenty-five former employees of Choice Bank Limited are demanding that Sagicor Life Insurance return their money. Choice Bank went belly up after it announced liquidity issues in April of this year. The Central Bank pulled its international banking license two days after Choice Bank announced that depositors will be able to withdraw up to seventy-five […]
The disgruntled and frustrated former Choice Bank employees say that if Sagicor continues to give them the round-a-around they will resort to legal action. Adrian Arana, Former Chief Compliance Officer, Choice Bank Ltd. “In the process from the windup when we first contact them in 2017 we had legal counsel involved, but when the […]
On Friday, during the Sitting of the House of Representatives, Cayo South Area Representative Julius Espat took on Health Minister Pablo Marin. Espat challenged Marin over the lack of medical personnel and services in many of the rural villages in Cayo South. He said that many of his constituents are not only having difficulties in […]
For the first time, the HelpAge International Latin America and Caribbean Sub-Regional conference is being hosted in Belize. The meeting brought together experts from across both regions to discuss the Inter-American Convention in the region on the Older Persons Rights in El Salvador and Costa Rica taking into consideration the experience and the role of […]
But while Belize was lauded for its work in safeguarding older persons, Patroness Maria Elena Sylvestre says that there is a lot to be done. In the past, we have seen that older persons have been victims of verbal, physical abuse and crime. She challenges the government to increase the penalty for persons who perpetrate […]
There was both joy and relief for the families of thirteen fishermen on Saturday morning. The fishermen had set sail fifteen days ago from Copper Bank and during that time, there was no word from them; their seven families hoped for the best, but feared the worst after multiple reports surfaced that the vessel had […]
A pool of Belizean journalists is in The Hague, Netherlands for one week. The group representing seven media houses and the Government Press Office includes our Marleni Cuellar. They arrived in that city on Sunday with the sole purpose to learn more about the International Court of Justice. The journalists have engaged in a number […]
Former High Commissioner for Belize to UK, Kamela Palma is speaking out against the Christmas Cheer by the U.D.P. Administration. Palma has been living in Punta Gorda since she vacated the post in London. She questions what the administration hopes to achieve by giving out Christmas cheer allowances of twenty-five thousand dollars to each elected […]
There is political intrigue to report tonight and it has to do with the retirement of Prime Minister Dean Barrow. For some time it had been known that the PM had scheduled his retirement timeline for one year before the end of the current U.D.P. term in office. The Prime Minister had explained that his […]
